A new branch has been recently added,--the collection of pay for the families of those who are prisoners in Rebeldom. But as this involves no new principles or fresh details, I pass it by. Another class of cases should receive a moment's notice. This includes the collection of bounties for discharged soldiers, of pensions for wounded soldiers, of bounty, back pay, and pensions for the families of deceased soldiers, and of prize-money for sailors. These cases are not, as a general rule, as intricate as those which I have already considered, inasmuch as the proper departments have a regular system of investigation, and take up and examine for themselves each case in its turn. All that the Commission does is to put the soldier on the right track, and to make out and present for him the fitting application. It undertook this because Washington was infested with a horde of sharpers, who, by false representations, defrauded the soldiers out of large sums. I cannot more appropriately close this branch of my subject than by stating the simple fact, that during the months of July and August the relief agents examined and brought to a successful issue 809 cases of back pay and bounty-money, averaging $125,--203 cases of invalid pensions, 378 cases of widows' pensions, and 10 cases of naval pensions, averaging $8 a month,--and 121 cases of prize-money, averaging $80. I have only to add that the amount of good which can be done in this direction seems to be limited only by the capacity of those who undertake to do it. A relief agent said to me, in conversation, that in one hospital in Philadelphia there were several hundreds who claimed, but were unable to collect their just dues,--and that what was true of this hospital was true to a less extent of all of them. * * * * *